Twitter files subpoena for Warren’s communications with SEC, FTC

Twitter filed a subpoena for Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) communications in recent months with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Trade Commission. (FTC)

Warren sent a letter to the SEC on Monday calling for an investigation into Tesla and its potential conflicts of interest following CEO Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter last fall. 

The letter asked SEC Chairman Gary Gensler to investigate the electric car company’s disclosures and how its board is “managing the apparent conflicts of its Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk.” She said Musk’s moves since purchasing Twitter and becoming its CEO while still remaining the head of Tesla raise concerns about “conflicts of interest, misappropriation of corporate assets, and other negative impacts to Tesla shareholders.” 

The subpoena, filed Thursday, requests all communications and documents between Warren, the SEC and the FTC that relate to the senator’s letter, X. Corp. — which is Twitter’s corporate name — and its owner, Elon Musk, in the months since he purchased the social media platform Oct. 27, 2022.

Warren has expressed concern over Tesla’s conflicts of interests in the past, and sent a letter last year to the chairman of the company’s board inquiring whether it “failed to meet,” its “legal duty.” Warren said the board has so far “refused to provide answers.” 

Musk received criticism last year, when SEC filings showed he sold billions of dollars worth of Tesla stock leading up to his $44 billion purchase of Twitter. 

He has continued to receive backlash for some of his controversial choices for the platform, including mass layoffs, firing some top executives and starting the Twitter Blue program, which requires users to pay a monthly subscription fee for the verification checkmark amid other perks.

Warren was also part of a group of Democratic senators who sent a letter to Twitter last month expressing their concerns over the social media platform’s privacy and data security following the resignations of some top data security executives, noting Twitter jeopardized security could potentially violate a 2022 consent decree with the FTC.

Last week, Twitter filed a motion to end the FTC’s oversight of its data security practices, which has been in place since the social media platform agreed to a consent order in 2011, when the agency alleged that the platform had “serious lapses,” in its data security. 

The Hill has reached out to Warren’s office for comment. The FTC and SEC declined to comment.

Updated: 3:29 p.m.